American President Bill Clinton said farewell to Africa at the end of his six-nation tour, pledging to strengthen ties between the continent and the US.

Speaking after a visit to Goree Island, off Senegal, Mr Clinton also paid tribute to the role African Americans had played in the life of the US.

"Goree Island is as much a part of our history as a part of
Africa's history," he said, referring to the number of Africans who passed through the island as part of the slave trade, on their way to America.

However, as expected, he stopped short of offering an apology for the slave trade.

Clinton and Senegalese President Abdou Diouf visiting a slaves' prison

He said: "The long journey of
African Americans proves that the spirit can never be enslaved. And that long journey is today embodied by the children of Africans who now lead America in all phases of our common life."

Mr Clinton, who is now back in the United States, said he had seen the future of Africa in the
faces of people he met during his 12-day sweep across the world's poorest continent.

"I remain more convinced that when I came here that, despite
the daunting challenges, there is an African renaissance," he
told his host, Senegal's president, Abdou Diouf, and an audience
that included cheering school students.

He said he would never forget the face of Nelson Mandela in
his old prison cell on South Africa's Robben Island. The South African president, he said, was "a man who used his suffering to break the shackles of
apartheid and now to reach towards reconciliation".